It’s day two of PantheaCon. It’s been a great festival so far.
Yesterday was fantastic, and today was another great day. Although I went to bed last night at 2 am, I woke up early today and attended the Shades of Faith: Minority Voices in Paganism Panel. It was a good discussion with a panel of intelligent Black women, including Crystal Blanton and Uzuri Amini. It was not as diverse as I would have liked; no men, Hispanics or Latinos, Asians, or Native Americans were represented. We haven’t been good at forming relationships with culturally and linguistically diverse Pagans, which highlights the importance of the panel.
I went to the vendor room after that and admired a lot of goodies before settling on an amber and jet necklace. I also had a 30-minute tarot reading with Mary Greer. We followed up on my tarot reading from last year. It was insightful, and she offered me good direction on dealing with the complex emotions that will emerge. Homesickness can creep in silently, is not always immediately identifiable for what it is, and is often misunderstood and underestimated by people not experiencing it.
I had lunch with Jason Pitzl-Waters. It was great to catch up with him. After lunch, we visited some hospitality suites. Funny enough, we did that together last year also. This time Teo Bishop joined us, and he was delightful.
Hospitality suites are a fun feature of PantheaCon. As if all the workshops and rituals on the official program weren’t enough, organisations such as ADF, Church of All Worlds, and Covenant of the Goddess (CoG) book suites and host social hours, small rituals, mediation, and other events. I visited a few, joined the CoG meeting for a while (I’m a member), and had champagne and a red velvet cupcake at the Umbanda suite.
After a 20-minute power nap, I went out to dinner with a couple of my fellow covenors and Andras and Deidre Arthen. It was great to catch up with them and nice to get out of the hotel for a while. Plus, it’s a treat to have great Mexican food.
Back at the Con, I attended a workshop called Entering the Cauldron of Ceridwen: Walking the Path of Avalon. It was an overview of the Avalonian tradition by Jhenah Telyndru, the founder of the Sisterhood of Avalon, a women’s spiritual organisation that I’ve been on the fence about joining for years. After that, I went to Ivo Dominguez’s Divine Embodiment: Assumption, Drawing Down, Aspecting, Possession. It was excellent. I think Ivo is one of the most brilliant minds in contemporary Paganism.
Now it’s time for bed and round three tomorrow.
Crystal penises??????
They’re decorative. Would you like one for the lounge room? 😛